Obama's approval rating is at its highest point in years, and that could be a big problem for Donald Trump

President
Barack Obama laughs at a joke told by Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong's toast of the president during a state dinner, Tuesday,
Aug. 2, 2016, in Washington.AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Barack Obama strode to the stage at last month's Democratic
National Convention in an unusual speaking slot.

He spoke in the primetime hour Wednesday night, a spot typically
reserved for a vice-presidential nominee.

In 2000, for instance, former President Bill Clinton spoke on
Monday night of then-Democratic nominee Al Gore's convention.
Former President George W. Bush, deeply unpopular in his second
term, didn't show up for then-Republican nominee John McCain's
party in 2008.

Obama's speaking slot was by design. It previewed an outsize
role in his final campaign: Electing Hillary Clinton to be his
successor in the White House.

"President Obama gives Hillary Clinton a hat trick: He can help
unite the party by bringing out Bernie Sanders supporters into
her camp, deliver an aggressive contrast about the threat posed
by Donald Trump, and ensure that all the supporters of the Obama
coalition show up in November," Ben LaBolt, a former spokesman
for Obama's presidential campaigns, told Business Insider earlier
this year.

Obama is prepared to campaign for his party's presidential
nominee more than any sitting president in recent
history. That could be a big problem for the GOP and its
nominee, Donald Trump. And a huge boon for Clinton.

The president's approval rating got its own convention bump: In a
CNN/ORC poll conducted after the
convention, 54% of Americans said they approved of Obama's job
performance. It was his highest mark since right before his
second inauguration in 2013. Just 45% disapproved.

That number is significant. Earlier this year, an NBC/Wall
Street Journal poll found that President Barack Obama's approval
rating had jumped to 51% — its highest point since his second
inauguration.

NBC's team of political analysts called it the "most important
number" out of the poll.

"Why is it important? Because it means that Obama will be
an asset to Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail unlike he was
in the 2014 midterms, when his approval rating was in the low
40s," NBC's Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann
wrote.

The threshold might seem arbitrary. But historical
precedent suggests it could bode well for Clinton, Obama's former
secretary of state.

Early this year, Obama's approval rating hit 50% in the
weekly average from Gallup's daily survey. As of Friday, it
stands at 51%. For Obama, whose approval ratings have been
stuck in the mid- to low-40% range for much of his second term,
it was a notable bump.

"While it's hard to pinpoint precisely why Obama's approval
rating has risen among Democrats recently, there are a number of
plausible explanations," wrote Andrew Dugan, a Gallup analyst,
and Frank Newport, the organization's editor-in-chief, in a post
earlier this year.

One of the explanations, the pair concurred, was that "the
unusual status of the Republican primary race — exemplified in
particular by frontrunner Donald Trump's campaign style and
rhetoric — may serve to make Obama look statesmanlike in
comparison."

Donald Trump at a campaign
rally in Florida.Mark
Wallheiser/Getty Images

Trump has come into Obama's crosshairs repeatedly as he has hit
the trail for Clinton. And with good reason: More so than at any
other presidential hand-off in recent history, so many elements
of the current administration's legacy are at stake.

The Republican nominee has pledged to undo signature achievements
on healthcare (the Affordable Care Act), the environment
(historic new regulations aimed at curbing climate change), and
foreign policy (the Iran nuclear deal).

Those themes will become evident as the president launches
into what will be his final campaign: Preventing a Trump
presidency.

"Not only does he have strong standing among Democrats and
independents, but he has a unique ability to mobilize the young
voters and diverse communities she'll need to win," LaBolt
said.

Obama's approval ratings at this point are far better than those
of Bush, his predecessor, off whose unpopularity Obama thrived
during his 2008 run. His level is most directly comparable
to former President Ronald Reagan, who in March 1988 held a 51%
approval rating, according to Gallup.

That same year, voters selected George H.W. Bush — Reagan's vice
president — to succeed him.

"Yes," said Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush's former
press secretary, when asked earlier this year if Obama's apparent
rising popularity poses a problem for the Republican Party.

"Certainly, going into an election spring and summer, it’s better
to have an incumbent president increasingly popular rather than
less popular if you’re the incumbent party," he told Business
Insider.

The numbers present a striking contrast to some data points
associated with the current Republican presidential frontrunner.

Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National
Convention.Alex Wong/Getty
Images

A recent Gallup survey revealed that 42% of voters
view Trump in a "highly unfavorable" light, compared with 16% who
see him highly favorably. That's the highest negative percentage
for any major presidential candidate since at least 1956,
according to Gallup.

"I've been doing this [since] 1964, which is the Goldwater
years," NBC/WSJ co-pollster Peter Hart told NBC of the relative unpopularity of
many of the candidates earlier in the year. "To me, this is the
low point. I've seen the disgust and the polarization. Never,
never seen anything like this. They're not going up; they're
going down."

It helps explain why Clinton is attaching herself to
much of Obama's legacy. And Obama remains favorable to wide
swaths of constituencies that Clinton needs to turn out to
vote in November. The president holds high approval ratings
among African-Americans (90%), Democrats (82%), Latinos (73%),
and voters aged 18 to 34 (64%), according to Gallup.

And despite the strong primary challenge from Sen. Bernie
Sanders, in many ways, Clinton has run an incumbent-style
campaign, and she has had much of the party's establishment
rallying behind her candidacy.

As Gallup's Dugan and Newport wrote earlier this year:

"In comparison, the two most recent candidates running to succeed
a two-term president of the same party — John McCain running to
follow the unpopular Bush, and Al Gore trying to succeed the
popular but scandal-prone Bill Clinton — went to greater pains to
ensure they were not associated with the outgoing president."

They concluded: "Prior to that, George H.W. Bush in 1988
presented himself as a natural heir to the Reagan legacy and was
able to win his own term."